


to forget all thoughts of return

by Madame la Problématique (callmearcturus)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad end, Body Modification, Bondage, Conditioning, M/M, MMORPGs, Other, Trans Female Character, Trans Roxy Lalonde, Transformation, Video Game Mechanics, Virtual Reality, Vulnerable Minds in AR's Clutches, Xenophilia, but sexy, but sexy!, positive reinforcement, tags added as story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-06 05:25:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18844519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmearcturus/pseuds/Madame%20la%20Probl%C3%A9matique
Summary: It starts when Jake asks Dirk to make him some newfangled technical wonder that'll let him watch movies in his sleep.Then Roxy does what any True Gamer would do and tries to put Skyrim on it.An ambitious group of friends creates the first MMORPG that you play as you sleep. What could be better than regulating REM cycles while you're running around in a big, gorgeous virtual world? To facilitate the project, the Augmented Reality procgen system keeps watch over the dreamers and builds the world from their imaginations.Nothing could possibly go wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a bit roughly written, I apologize in advance.

Initialize connection . . .  
Initialize AUGMENTED REALITY PROCGENERATOR . . .  
Joining TEST_SEVER_01 . . .  
WELCOME TO WORLDNAME!

“What the hell?” Roxy put her hands together, forming a box with her fingers. The chat log with its cherry red status text appeared in a display that hovered between the Ls she formed. Spreading her hands out, the display grew in size until she could read it. “You didn’t name the world yet!”

“And you typoed ‘server.’” Dirk sighed and opened up his own display with a similar gesture. The screen overlaid the environment with a desaturated box, darkening the grassy ultrabright hill beyond it. “Endymion.”

“You’re a nerd-ass nerd man from nerdtown.” She tossed her hair and walked forward, looking around the environment. “Hm.”

“Yeah,” Dirk said, opening the command line. He briskly typed ' _timaeustestified.mod.spawnitem index_sunglasses1 2’_ and hit Enter.

Immediately, two pairs of sunglasses appeared in front of him, floating in balls of yellow light. He reached through the screen, snatching them up. One, he handed off to Roxy. “Hey.”

She plucked them up, and together both slid the glasses on. “Much better. Remind me to lower the contrast, this is awful.”

“What about Atlantis?”

“Sure thing, _Timaeus._ Ego much?”

Dirk smirked very slightly. “I’ll tell Jake it’s from the Disney movie.”

“Cheating, such a cheater, the game isn’t even launched and you’re cheating.” Without waiting, she started walking over the landscape, looking sternly at the ground. The summit they were standing on rolled downward in a moderate slope. Roxy’s steps were jaunty as she planted her boots carefully, working her way down.

For the moment, Dirk simply looked around, trying to take in everything. Individual blades of grass seemed to snap into clarity as he tried to focus on them. As he diverted his attention again, the grass reverted to a much more simplistic texture, as if a blur filter settled over anything he wasn’t examining. “Don’t wander off yet,” he called to Roxy.

“Don’t stand around like the most boring man alive and come on!” she shot back, not halting her descent until she reached the bottom of the hill and could skip to a stop on the even ground. “I want to test the AR!”

“Can we space out the stress testing a bit? Rox!” Caving, he followed her path down the hill, letting the momentum carry him to a jog back to her side.

“There’s no trees.”

“Yet,” Dirk said. “This is just a spawn point. Zero, zero.”

“I’m surprised at how, like…” She grasped at the air in front of her, seemingly to reach for the words. “Awake it feels? I expected it to be more… dreamy.”

“The equipment is inducing a deep REM cycle for us, which heightens our understanding and control.” Touching his floating display, Dirk summoned up the relevant server load charts, watching the RAM bounce along. “Mu. Shangri-la.”

“Cantref Gwaelod.”

“Sounds Welsh. Do we want Welsh shit in our game?”

“No more or less worthy than Greek shit.”

“Ys.”

“That’s not marketable, and is that how you say that?”

“Fuck if I know,” Dirk muttered. “We’re reaching the edge of the spawn point. Augmented Reality Procedural Generator?”

“Oh my god,” she moaned. “Hey, AR, sup!”

A voice sounded from everywhere, as if the waves of grass themselves had become transmission of the audio wave, emanating from the earth around them. “Oneiros might be an accurate name for this place.”

“Greek is boring,” Roxy said. “Anyway, AR, are you running okay? We’re going to see what you got.”

”My processes are linked to server uptime, so anytime it is running, you can safely assume I am as well. Do you have any requests for the next generated block?”

“No,” Dirk said, interrupting Roxy as she opened her mouth. “It’s up to you to extrapolate from your users. Standard operating procedure.”

”Understood.”

“I would like some trees!” Roxy called out. Dirk sighed.

Eventually, as they continued to walk to the border of the spawn point, the blur effect grew in intensity. The horizon was so smudged, it was impossible to find where the ground met the skybox, they bled so much into each other. For a moment, it hurt to even look at.

Then, the RAM graph lifted, jumping from 10% to 60%. It held steady for a long moment, then the gaussian filter over the world rapidly changed. The veil dropped, and before them was a copse of trees standing up amid the ground. The grass scattered and faded out into carved stone tiles, each adorned with a sigil of some kind. Around the trees stood some red stone henges in various states of disarray. Through the completed ones, the threshold seemed to hold another world; peering through, Dirk could see a moonlit beach, a lofty mountain peak surrounded by clouds, a deep redwood forest, and a subterranean cavern with glowing crystals.

“Huh,” Dirk murmured. “Covering all the biome bases there.”

“Oh, that’s fuckin’ cool,” Roxy breathed, practically skipping forward to go examine the portals up close.

”If you give me another ninety seconds, I can have a landing area generated for each location. Have a nice tour, see the sights.”

“Ninety. Seconds.” She beamed at Dirk. “Omigawd. This could work.”

Yeah. It was true. This could work.

Jake was going to lose his mind.

* * *

The idea was first seeded when Jake asked Dirk if there was a way he could apply his tremendous technical know-how and ingenuity to crafting a doohickey for someone to watch movies during sleep. Just to spice up the ol’ forty winks a bit, give a fellow something else to watch than the usual nightly dramatics. No one needed _another_ dream of doing a press conference naked, having to hide behind the podium.

Dirk had said no. Or, more accurately, 'hell fucking no, English, you don’t need to rot your brain on everything Shudder had to offer.''

Jake insisted he would keep it to the Criterion Collection, but Dirk was an obstinate prick sometimes. If he wasn’t Jake’s beloved handsome kept man, Jake would absolutely fire him. In a heartbeat.

Instead, he brought up his incredibly idea with Roxy, who laughed and said it was the best idea ever, and could they try to install a GBA emulator on it?

By the time Dirk caught on to the project, Jake already secured a test model of the CrockerCorp Thoughtwave TiaraTop™ to play with. Jane was always willing to be a pal and lend out her company’s technology for product development... as long as Jake shared the results, of course.

Dirk was not amused, but also couldn’t resist getting involved into a twisty, tricky puzzle.

“Don’t tell Jane I said this, but this thing is hideous,” he’d said when the ThoughtWave TiaraTop arrived by courier to their offices. “Let’s slap some SkaiaNet style on it.”

Frankly, if Jake were in charge of the design, he would go for something with a bit more pizazz. Anything that was meant to fit over the head should just be skull-shaped. It was logic! Fashionable logic!

Roxy and Dirk took to working on the headset while Jake was distracted or busy out of the office, and before long they retooled the CCTWTT (an hilariously unwieldy moniker but one required in all the documentation by the licensing agreement from Jane) into a new device. It was a narrow band that circumnavigated the cranium, dipping down into a pointed arch over the ears to hold a pair of comfortable earphones. The band was dotted with nodules that rested against strategic points around the head, presumably to stimulate and take readings from the brain.

It was sleek, the stretchy parts of the band matte black with dark red accents around the ears, neat lights coming on as the device activated.

“Sexy,” Jake had complimented as Roxy modeled it.

“It’s Gamer Red so people will know it’s for true gamers,” she’d joked.

“And what color is for movies?” Jake then asked. “Have we diverged from our goals? Without informing me?”

“It’ll play your damn movies.” Dirk had elbowed him chidingly. “But it’s got more capabilities than that. While we were working, we were imagining some of the possibilities.”

“Like, what if we put Skyrim on it!” Roxy laughed.

“Yeah, so, here’s the thing,” Dirk had said, then explained the thing to Jake.

What the dastardly duo presented was the next big venture from SkaiaNet: A new piece of software, a massive game to play at night, stimulating the mind’s sleep cycles and using those empty hours for something interesting though not particularly strenuous. Born from Roxy’s desire to shove games onto every compatible device she could-- her fridge door had DOOM installed on it-- alongside Dirk’s desire for an insomnia cure, the game was meant to promote better rest via fun adventures.

Jake suspected 'adventure' was a careful vernacular ploy meant to entice him. And damn both of them, it worked.

When Dirk and Roxy tested the game for the first time, it was strange to observe. Jake sat at Dirk’s computer station, dutifully monitoring the various graphs and lines of commands that were the pulse of the subconscious world. 

One window held the Augmented Reality Procedural Generator, a series of concentric circular gauges that rose and fell like lungs with air. It worked merrily away, a short log bar showing abbreviated commands that vanished faster than the human eye could track, the magic words that wove the world his friends slept inside.

There were two cots, each occupied. The newest model of the sleep band was fixed to each of their heads.

Roxy was always one for catnaps throughout the day, spurning a normal sleep schedule entirely. Her mouth was open enough to see her teeth as she breathed loudly, on the edge of snoring.

And Dirk… Jake was used to the little furrow in his brow that clung to him despite slumber. Leaning over, Jake tried to smooth it out with a stroke of his thumb.

Dirk’s eyes opened, and Jake yelped, falling hard back into the rolly chair. “Ah, shit, I didn’t mean to wake you!”

On the other cot, Roxy moaned and placed her hands over her face, fingertips nudging the band off her head. “Shit, what? What’s happening?”

“You didn’t wake us, dude,” Dirk murmured. “Session over. We’re done with today’s tests.”

“Oh! Well, that’s a relief.” Slapping his knees, Jake looked between the two. “Okay, then, what’s up, how did it go? All copacetic? I looked for all the little warning flags you mentioned, beau, but I didn’t spot anything hinky up with the ones and zeros.”

Roxy rolled onto her side, pulling her pillow down to wrap her arms around it. “That’s because it went great! Jake, holy shit, you have to get in on this. It’s gorgeous in there, it’s totally vivid and--”

“And reduce contrast,” Dirk said suddenly, pointing to Roxy. “Something about the brightness.”

“Riiight right right, yes, thank you. Wow, I barely remember that. It’s so weird.” She frowned for a second, then shrugged. “I’ll be interested to see what it feels like to go _back_ in. Like, will things pick up where they left off all easy-like?”

“We need to test that. Figure out how much complexity a dreaming mind can even handle, that will determine the parameters of the game’s mechanics--”

“And a fuckin’ name!” She reached over and smacked Dirk’s arm. “Name the thing!”

Jake felt lightning fire up his spine. His time had come at last. “Oh, isn’t that a funny old thing, we totally forgot to name it. How about… Limbo?”

Dirk covered his face.

“No? How about Fantasia!”

Roxy snorted.

“Oh, fine. That’ll get us sued by those fellows with the big MMO. How about… oh, Xanadu!”

Dirk opened his eyes and looked up, squinting at Jake as if he were illuminated. “Xanadu.”

Finally some positive feedback. “Yes! Like, say, did you ever see that odd flick with Olivia Newton John, there was this trippy roller-rink--”

“Fuck me. _’In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree! Where Alph the sacred river ran through the caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea!’”_ Dirk said, loud and pained like each syllable was pebbled glass.

“What? Look, I didn’t memorize the movie script, you flippin’ geek!”

Roxy climbed out of her cot. “I’m going to make some coffee. You two have fun with your weird flirting.”

* * *

As the man signing the checks to make the engine run, Jake got the first tour through version .05. He pulled his headband on and laid his head on Dirk’s shoulder.

And they woke up in the dream, the game populating around them. The ground was flat black stone, fit together in that staggered pattern that indicated a road. It stretched around into some market, a long corridor of canvas-covered carts and booths. Each canvas was a different color, gaudy and bright in a way that itched in Jake’s brain with meaning. Some kind of game symbology was at play, he was sure.

There were no wares out on display. No scattered detritus that one would expect from such a place. Even more jarring was the total lack of people. There was not a soul in sight, and it gave Jake the unsettled feeling of staring into old doll houses. All just a bit creepy for his liking.

At his side, Dirk was already opening windows to hover around him like orbiting satellites. He pulled one close, watching lines of red text roll up.

Jake stared at him, waiting. “Ahem.”

Dirk continued to read the red text as it continued to crawl up his screen. “Don’t just say ‘ahem’ out loud, come on.”

“It’s all a bit empty, isn’t it?”

Dirk nodded. “It’s an incremental process. We want to make sure the AR can handle generating each stage of the world. Landscape and architecture first, then items in the world, then complex entities. So I’m leaving M-- the protocol disabled so far.”

“M? Mmmmm?” Jake leaned in, pressing their shoulders together.

Sighing heavily, Dirk clicked his windows shut with a swipe of his hands. “Morpheus protocol. Roxy wrote the majority of the proc-gen, but let me name everything. Or else she just names everything like…. ‘codething one,’ ‘codethingagain,’ ‘code for thing,’ so on. I tried to give everything a little more focus.”

“And Morpheus is… the surly fellow from the Gaiman comic?”

A smile snuck over Dirk’s face. “Correct, but also in a more original sense, Morpheus was said to create the people you see in your dreams, the guy who populates everything. What’s currently running is the Phantasos protocol, which makes the world itself and populates buildings. Icelos protocol, which handles things we would easily recognize, like potions and armor and food and other inanimate stuff, is turned off right now. So consider the three of them the interwoven parts that make a living world.”

“We can’t flip them all on, see what the whole khebab looks like?” Jake gestured to the market they stood in. “This looks incredible, but…”

“Not yet,” Dirk said quietly. “Let’s walk, and let the AR generate more environment. Maybe we’ll flip a few switches.”

Their journey through sleep took them through the great black stone city, arid breezes cutting through alleyways. Jake’s hair moved fluidly, and he could feel the dryness of the air between what seemed like every single strand of hair.

The city opened into a huge archway, into a dark jungle. The atmosphere immediately turned cooler, even the sunlight seeming to shift from gold to a murky green. Humidity beaded sweat on Jake’s neck.

“It’s an remarkable sight,” he said softly. “The little details are as devilish as you could hope for.”

“Deep REM sleep makes that easier. Your brain fills in a lot from just suggestions, which avoids taxing the system too much.”

“But…” Something was off. Jake looked around, as if the answer would jump out at him. The air was heavy around him, and it was bugging him something fierce. “No smell?”

“Good catch,” Dirk said. “As we use the system more, it’s learning more about how our brains work. With time and more uptime with active users, the fidelity will keep increasing. Nothing we can theoretically experience is beyond it, it’s all just firing neurons leading our brains along.”

The thick underbrush around them shifted, the sound of the leaves rubbing together noisy. Hands on his thighs, Jake bent down to listen, jostling the shrub again after it settled. “Sounds… argh, it’s really good but something is just…”

Grabbing the back of his shirt, Dirk pulled Jake upright. “If you examine it too much, the artifacting around the edges crops up. So don’t do that.”

“But it’ll improve. Maybe we can open a, whatsit? When you have a bunch of people come in to do QA for your thing?”

“An open beta, and we’re not ready yet.” He crossed his arms and jerked his head, urging Jake along as they moved on. “But getting more data would help. Maybe an internal alpha.”

“Not an external omega?”

“You know what these terms mean, come on.”

Jake snorted loudly, causing Dirk to look sharply up at him. “For a man making a game, you’re not having a lot of fun.”

“Playing games is fun,” Dirk said. “Making them is work.”

Jake blew a raspberry at him and grabbed his hand. “Whatever, bro, come on. How do we…” He tipped his head back, looking skyward, because that oddly seemed appropriate? “Hello, AR! Could you turn on the middle protocol thing that handles the random stuff?”

“Jake,” Dirk started.

”Icelos is pulling on his shoes and will be running momentarily. Please feel free to approach the edge of the current block and we’ll give this a spin.”

“Excellent! Thank you, chum!”

There was a pause. ”You’re welcome, I guess?”

Letting out a scandalized gasp, Jake gawked at Dirk. “Have you not been saying your pleases and thank yous to our esteemed host? Strider!”

“Oh my god,” Dirk said. “Let’s just… go. See what’s up next. Sorry for not being polite to the computer program.”

”Apology accepted,” the world intoned.

“Ha ha!” Jake grinned. “Sure, let’s explore.”

Keeping the stone city to their backs, they walked even further outward from the spawn point. Dirk tried to open his console to observe the numbers and code that created the world around them. Pointedly, Jake took his hand and linked their fingers. Soon, he subsided.

The feeling of Dirk’s skin against his was _perfect_ , eerily precise. He knew the way Dirk’s hands felt, where his bones jutted out a little and the minute way his knuckles felt when rubbed. It was scarily accurate, and Jake gulped.

His first thought was what else would feel scarily accurate in this world.

His second, more appropriate thought was, “Should I have a totem? Do we need totems?”

“I have been waiting for you to ask that.” At least he sounded fond. “No. There are a few hard coded actions that will literally always work, even in the case of a server outage. So as long as you are asleep and the client is running, you can do this.”

Dirk snaps his fingers, and in front of him, a wide screen opens. It nearly fills Jake’s vision, desaturating the world seen through it.

In a nice, staid font read:

`SERVER TIME: 03:20 (DAY)`

`LOCAL TIME: 07:45 PM`

`SESSION LENGTH: 0 HOURS 27 MINUTES`

`REM CYCLE: STABLE`

Under all of the text, there was a button labeled:

`INITIATE WAKE SEQUENCE`

“Wake sequence,” Jake murmured.

“Works under normal MMO rules. If you’re in a sanctuary space, like a hub city or something, you can be woken up immediately. If you’re out and engaged in something active, you have to wait a bit.” Dirk clicked his fingers again, and the window vanished. “It’s always best to log out in a sanctuary.”

“I suppose that makes sense. But... what if people lose track of time? I’m given to understand that’s fairly common with video games.”

“Generally speaking, you should have four or five REM cycles per night. After five, the player is automatically put into the wake sequence.”

“Phew, okay!” Jake raised Dirk’s hand to his lips, giving the back a smooch. “You and Roxy have thought of everything.”

“We try. And you can bring up that screen with a voice command too. We’ll tutorialize the shit out of it.” He glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck. “Should be near the new block.”

The ground went out from them, and together both slid down a damp grassy hill.

Tumbling ass over teakettle like Wesley and Buttercup dragged on for a while. In the real world, it’d likely be enough to put them in the hospital or at least laid up for an extended period. Luckily, in the game world, Jake simply wound up landing on Dirk’s back, a little sore but otherwise fine.

Dirk seemed less fine. “Ow, fuck, off!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Climbing off Dirk required pushing down on him more, and since Dirk was built like rough scaffolding wrapped in tissue paper, it wasn’t much better. Rolling to his knees, Jake stroked Dirk’s back. “Was that, erm, is fall damage on in this place?”

 _”Yeah,_ feels like,” he groaned, rolling onto his back. “Terrain shouldn’t fucking plummet between blocks like that. I’ll have Roxy add some gradient controls.”

That sounded hunky-dory to Jake, but his attention was already elsewhere.

They’d not just landed at the bottom of a hill. They’d fallen into some sort of enclosed space, a glade surrounded by walls coated in thick moss and what... what looked very much like little pixies flitting around, glowing merrily turquoise with showers of sparkly dust left in their wake.

The light sliced through the trees and down to illuminate stripes of the glade. It fell bright and heavy over an enormous sundial, and chest-high pedestals that seemed conspicuously empty, devoid of any eye-catching prizes.

Climbing to his feet, Jake dusted off his knees and staggered forward, examining what was laid out for them. “Holy mackerel. Dirk!”

Sitting up, Dirk peered around. “Huh. Alright. Nice god rays.”

“It’s a puzzle! There’s puzzles in this game?”

“Not…. explicitly.” He opened a monitor and peered at it. “Normal procgen is running.”

“Well, it does make sense!” Jake said cheerfully as he approached the big sundial and ran a hand over the cut stone. “It draws from the players to create more content, right? That’s the whole idea.” Smiling, he patted the stone, as if it’d pleased him. “And I love a good puzzle.”

“If you turn this entire world into The Witness, I fucking quit.”

“Yes, dear,” Jake said, because Dirk threatened to quit about twice a month.

The rest of their session was spent in the puzzle glade as Jake explored the area and figured out the parameters. When he pushed the sundial, it spun on a heavy pivot, and the sunlight moved in unison, as if time was being reset around them. Getting one of the god rays onto a pedestal caused it to light up and reflect out. So, Jake tried different combinations until he could find where the light should start and how to get it to hit all the pedestals.

Dirk, sitting nearby, spawned in an fruit ration and ate an orange as he watched.

In the end, the final pedestal lit up and fired the beam right back at the sundial. It glowed for a moment before the pointer dissolved, leaving just the round slab of stone.

”Alright, I’ll be honest, you solved that faster than expected and I don’t actually have a loot inventory yet. So please accept this victory chime as your reward until future notice. Chime commencing in 3… 2... “

An energetic jingle rang through the world. Jake applauded.

“The great big god computer owes me a boon! I’m okay with that,” Jake said.

”As soon as my creators input an equipment system, we’ll get you kitted out, man.”

“Roxy’s working on it,” Dirk said, snapping his fingers. “That’s enough for tonight, I think.”

It was a satisfactory little escapade. Following suit, Jake pulled up his own status screen, and started the wake sequence.

* * *

Nebeltal was the first fully feature complete build of SkaiaNet’s little project. It lay deep in the cleft of a valley, cradled in a scoop of mountains. The air was heavy with a green-scented mist, and a light rain was nearly constant. The roads were covered with thin gauzy canopies, dyed lilac and pink, keeping the rain off everyone’s heads. Enormous wheels hung from the top of heavy towers, deep buckets collecting water; the weight spun the grand mechanism steadily, dumping water into great basins and powering the city’s grinders and gears.

It filled the valley like wine in the bottom of a goblet, but was remarkably sparse. There seemed no end of buildings and roads and hideaways to see, but as she walked through the Nebeltal it was remarkably empty. In the main thoroughfare, there was a quiet shroud of noise, but no louder than the ambiance of Jane’s favorite restaurants.

Despite that, Roxy swung her arms open wide. “Look at this! Look. At. This.” She pointed to a temple, adorned with some banners with squiggly writing. “I designed that one, it’s going to be the setting for a big questline later.”

Jane pushed her glasses up her nose. “I… can’t read it.”

“Oh, I know! So, the game has its own alphabet and language, something that will come more easily to a sleeping mind. But it takes a little bit to learn it. Like, while you dream, the game teaches it to you. It’s _so cool.”_

“I see.” Roxy’s enthusiasm was infectious. “There’s likely a huge application for sleep studies with this technology. Or, you know, sleep learning, not the other thing.”

“Haha, I knew you’d zero in on that shit.”

Huffing, Jane crossed her arms. “I’m just thinking ahead! The possibilities are endless, and I’ve been waiting for Jake to propose some kind of alliance for years now. He’s never taken it seriously, how well CrockerCorp and SkaiaNet compliment each other.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Roxy rolled her eyes a bit and lead Jane further into the city. “Well, let the ink dry on this deal before you go all in on that business marriage, Janes. Jake’s still getting his feet wet with this one.”

“Where _is_ he, by the by? I haven’t seen him since, well. I saw him sleeping outside the game.”

“Dude is gung-ho to the friggin’ max on this thing. Last I saw, he was geared up and heading out to explore the area.” She waved vaguely to one of the mountains that loomed in the distance. “See, more he does now, the more the AR generates ahead of time. Just by doing questlines, Jake’s causing more to be made, so there’s more to do for everyone.”

“I’m sure its such a hardship for him, all that work,” Jane remarked dryly.

“All work and no play makes Jane a dullsgirl, you know.”

She sighed deeply. The air tasted like fresh green tea in her mouth. “I don’t have a surplus of time, Roxy.”

“Uh, it’s a game we can play while we sleep?” Roxy elbowed her hard. “You do sleep sometimes, right?”

“On occasion,” Jane conceded softly, coming to a stop in the middle of the road as she spotted something ahead. “What on earth is that?”

Laughing, Roxy threw up a hand. “Sup, boys!”

Amid the people wandering through Nebeltal with tunics and cloaks, two men stood out. One was obviously Dirk, with his swoop of hair perfectly replicated in the game world and a pair of incongruous jeans that clashed badly with the magical atmosphere.

Next to him was someone wearing a helmet. Not a knight’s helmet or anything of the sort, but a flashy golden bike helmet with a wide black visor. As Jane watched, a waveform danced and jumped across the visor, red lines on black glass.

Both of them turned at Roxy’s call, and wandered over. A crowd of floating screens followed Dirk as he moved. His companion’s projected waveform quieted down to a barely moving line.

“Hello, Dirk,” Jane greeted with a smile. “And… Robot Rock?”

The helmeted man threw up a peace sign. “Television, it rules the nation.” His waveform followed his words merrily. “Hey, Ms. Crocker.”

“Hi Dave. I didn’t know you were involved in this project.”

Dirk shrugged. “This place needs some BGM, so I asked if he wanted to help. Unfortunately--”

“--My price is vanity gear. Obviously.”

“You’re writing the music for the game?” The excitement bled into her voice; of course she was happy to collaborate on this project with her good friends and peers, but with every new piece of information, she _was_ learning a new language, and it was all dollar signs.

“Eeeeh….” Dave seesawed his hand. It was adorned with big, chunky, obnoxious rings like costume jewelry. It clashed horribly with everything he wore and the very world around them. “So we’re kind of in a test bed right now? Uh, Dirk could probably explain shit better…”

Nodding along, Dirk picked up the thread. “This place, the Nebeltel region, is a mix of procedural generation and handcraft, and it’s sort of a template for the AR to refer to. Next step after stress testing this region is to set AR loose to make another one, and then we’ll know we’re ready to roll with this project.”

“So…” Jane frowned between them. “I’m not sure I follow. Will you be composing, or?”

“Nah, I’m just doing some stuff for this region, and then the, uh…” Dave waved a hand skyward. “The AR guy, he’ll learn from that and make other jams from there and from the music in the dreams of the people who come into the world.” His waveform flattened for a beat. “Wow, that sounds like… some deep magicks, right there.”

Roxy snickered and waggled her fingers. “Wanna be a mage, Dave? I’m sure we’ll get a bard class up in here for you.”

“Can I beat people with a sitar? Because sign me up.”

“Anyway,” Dirk said over them. “Dave’ll make up the sort of compositional backbone, maybe set up some leitmotifs, and from there it’ll be like a musical neural network, sourced from everyone in the game.”

It was incredibly neat, but the logistics were impossible for Jane to ignore. “The Terms of Service for this game will need to be airtight. Last thing we want is to be sued because someone’s subconscious symphony is playing through a raid boss.”

Roxy’s head swiveled to Jane. “Hang on… what do you play, what do you main, girl?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Jane giggled, covering her mouth with her fist. “Hoo hoo, but no, this is fantastic. We just have to be very careful.”

"We can be careful later," Roxy said, hooking her arm through Jane's. "Come on, let's have some fun."

* * *

SkaiaNet launched their subconscious gaming apparatus in Q2. Early adopters joined into the game as part of the Closed Beta, and Dirk and Roxy spent most of their days observing the server load, pushing hotfixes, planning patches, and most of their nights dreaming with thousands of other people.

”I have a proposal,” the AR system messaged Dirk one morning as he drank a macchiato and read through the server logs.

”I have read through 346 pieces on market research and compiled a masterlist of active games of the last twenty years. Combining these figures and studies into some charts and crossbreeding them with the thematic throughline of the project, I have come up with a suitable title that should play well with our demographic.”

Dirk held his heavy stone mug to his mouth, listening attentively to the projected voice of the AR. “Alright. Creature, name thyself.”

“Oneironautica.”

Grimacing, Dirk shot a look at the monitor with the text feed that relayed the AR’s written speech. “Kind of unwieldy.”

”A level of unwieldiness is very hip and in right now.”

“Fair enough. Send Jake an email and he’ll approve it.”

”I have extended the idea to him already to prepare for this conversation. In return, he wants to call the game world Atlantis. I don’t think he intended the synergy between etymological origins, but I believe it works well.”

“He might,” Dirk said. “Doubt he studied the original texts but he’s fuckin’ canny.”

”He hides it well.”

“Or you’re not as observant as you think, which is funny given your connection to subconscious minds, huh?” Pointedly taking another long sip, Dirk relented. “Send it up to marketing, get them to package it all. I wanna see some badass splash screens.”

In Q4, just in time for the holiday tech rush, _Oneironautica_ launched, bundled with the SkaiaNet Dreamweaver. 

Atlantis flooded with sleeping minds.

* * *

Two weeks out of the beta and into full uptime, Dirk found himself at the northernmost corner of Nebeltal. The mist up here was thick, enough to slowly dampen his hair and pull his locks into pointed tips. Singular drops of water fell across his vision as he stood up on the plateau.

Behind him lay the starting city, teeming with newcomers looking for quests and shops and hunts. From it stretched the valley, dotted with waypoints and landmarks. People grouped into teams or soloing the field scattered around.

In front of him lay the border of the playable world, where his vision turned foggy and impenetrable. Colors shifted, the palette every changing; if could be a dense jungle one moment, a black salt beach the next, then a grassy meadow with dots of color like heavy-headed flowers.

The world would be expanding soon. Once they determined the Nebeltal region was completely stable, the AR would create the next one, and players would begin to explore in there too, filling out the questlines with the sheer power of their presence.

Maybe he’d venture out first, just to set the tone a little.

As he contemplated this and watched the RAM load, another window appeared ahead of him, chiming cheerfully.

GT: Ahoy there wayward strider!  
GT: How long have you been in game? I didnt notice you arrive!

TT: I’m in administrative mode, so my actions don’t appear in the public logs.  
TT: Hi. How’s Kyoto?  
TT: Wait, how are you asleep right now? It’s dinnertime there, isn’t it?

GT: Im taking an early sleep and I likely will be up to enjoy the night life.  
GT: All the official business was in the morning and afternoon so Im totally free now!  
GT: Where are you?

TT: Sleep lab in the Austin HQ.

GT: No no! In Atlantis where are you hiding?  
GT: Say if you have that good admin drag on why not just teleport me over to see you!

Dirk smiled and shook his head.

TT: Busy.

GT: Busy?! I am your boss mr. strider!  
GT: You are not too busy to indulge your stalwart leader!

TT: Pulling rank on me when I’m working is not sexy or cute, Jake.

GT: If i wear the right boots it is.  
GT: You wouldnt want me cross with you now would you dirk?

Dealing with Jake when he was feeling frisky was not the best way to stay focused on his work, but also Jake had been abroad for several days, and Dirk was already pulling up his command line.

Jake appeared ten feet away with a whipcrack of effervescent light, watery sparkles raining down as his feet touched ground.

“Whoa fucking nelly!” Jake staggered, resting both his hands on a newby rock formation. “That was… not particularly pleasant. Oooouf.” He leaned forward, resting his head on the rock and taking some deep breaths.

Dirk approached and put a hand on his back. “Yeah, I don’t think a sleeping mind enjoys sudden location changes.” Stroking up and down his back, he waited.

“You ain’t just whistling Dixie, oof.” Bracing himself, he straightened slowly, turning to face Dirk and put a hand on his bicep. He still looked a little nauseous, but he smiled as their eyes met. “Hey there, stranger.”

“Hi.” The veracity of how damn green and warm Jake’s eyes were still startled Dirk, even with all his foreknowledge of how the game worked. Of course he’d look vivacious and real, of course. Breaking the stare, Dirk looked over Jake. A waved hand let him focus his monitor on Jake. “Wow, level 30 already?” His eyes narrowed. “Dude, are you cheating?”

Jake gasped, loud and dramatic. “The nerve of you! Of course not! I’ll have you know this is my only class so far, so I’ve been leveling it up swift as you please! And the cap isn’t that high, honestly.”

“It’ll go up with the next expansion,” Dirk reminded him. “Really digging the gear. Augur, right?”

Stepping back and planting his feet wide, Jake put his hands on his hips, puffing out his chest. “You sure picked a bunch of odd jobs for this game, but I liked the outfit preview and ranged fighting seemed best for my first class. And the funky luck manipulation sure is a neat trick! Makes me feel like a dice shooter.” He tilted his head to the side, grinning at Dirk. “Maybe we can rename this one Gambler or something?”

“Nah,” Dirk said. The outfit was pretty good; Jake had on a pair of high-waisted shorts with gleaming double buttons and an elegant vest with gold accents.

As advertised, he wore boots, hunter green with brass fastens. They were… very close to the right boots.

“Such insubordination!” He fucking cocked his hip as he stood there, attention fixed uncomfortably on Dirk. “As soon as I’m out of the country, you just run wild and free, is that it?”

“I’m working,” Dirk said patiently. “I… it’s strange seeing you.”

“Strange,” Jake repeated slowly, smile getting flinty. “I rather like it! We’ve all been so busy getting this project off the ground, but any given night we can hook up in this world of ours.”

“Hook up.”

“Is there an echo up here?” Jake reached out and tugged on the belt loop of Dirk’s jeans. “What are you supposed to be, then? Really puts a damper on the roleplay when you’re in your civvies.”

“I’m…. working, Jake, holy shit, what--” His ears started to burn, which was a level of realism he hadn’t really prepared for. “Are you implying we should use the fucking dream game we built for conjugal visits we can’t fit into the day?”

“Obviously!” Jake’s brow furrowed. “Are we not on the same page here? I think it’s a fantastic solution. How many nights do we come home and are just to doggone tired for any hanky panky? I think it’s great to put a raincheck on our liaisons until we’re up and at ‘em in Atlantis.”

“How… would that work? We didn’t set up the base mechanics with that much detail to… encounters. I don’t even know if, uh.” He gestured downward. “It might be Ken doll down there.”

“Holy smokes, Dirk, have you not checked?” Jake laughed.

“Have you?”

“Within ten minutes of loading into the launch version!” He patted his-- himself briskly.

Dirk didn’t have a response for that, even remotely, so he shook his head, looking at his monitors again.

Jake didn’t take well to that; quick-stepping in, he waved the screen away, sending the window flying out of range until it dissolved into spare pixels. “Have you even earned a single level in this game? Have you had any fun at all? There is a lot to explore in here if you’d stop staring at graphs and gauges.”

Exhaling slowly through his nose, Dirk crossed his arms. “This job is to ensure everyone else gets to do all that shit. It’s important.”

Without missing a beat, Jake jabbed a finger against his chest. “You are not going to convince me that you don’t have an elaborate alarms system in place in triplicate to let you know the moment Oneiro dips into the yellow let alone the red. That is not happening!”

“Fine, I’m not!” Beyond that, he couldn’t think of what to say and so stiffly glared back.

Oddly, the tension went out of Jake at that, his beatific smile returning. “Okay, then perhaps… we can combine a few ideas here. And it’ll be good stress testing! A rightful _christening_ of the game.”

“I’m already suspicious.”

“Oh, shut it, Strider.” Jake shrugged his pack off his back, dropping it nearby. Kneeling by it, he started sorting through the contents. “Around level 15 the game nudges you into a crafting class, and there was a lot to try out. It’s all very robust.”

“The AR should continue to populate the items system based on what the dreamers want,” Dirk offered up.

“Well, it did a stellar job of that! Very accomodating!” Bouncing back to his feet, Jake tucked something behind his back. “You don’t have auto-equip on, do you?”

“No, why?”

“Because I’d like the tactile luxury of doing this myself.” Sauntering in closer, Jake took Dirk’s hand in his, palm to palm. Turning his arm, he wrapped something around Dirk’s bare wrist.

It was a thick strap with a silver buckle, heavy sueded leather. The weight of it was significant, taking the breath out of Dirk for a moment.

The cuff could have passed for some basic goth accessorizing, but for the fact it was a rich dark blue.

“Jake,” Dirk said, sharp and stern.

“Not done,” Jake replied, voice going hard as black ice. He applied a matching cuff to Dirk’s other wrist, a perfect twin. Then, he told Dirk to sit.

Dirk sank heavily on a handy nearby stone and watched warily as Jake stepped around behind him. Trying to turn to follow his movement only got him a chiding click of Jake’s tongue.

He was almost expecting it when Jake reached around him and stretched another heavy strap around Dirk’s neck. He pulled Dirk back with it, his nose against Dirk’s hair as he buckled the collar into place. When it was secure, Jake wrapped his arms around Dirk’s chest, breathing him deeply in.

They were familiar, the three pieces. Their real life replicas lived in the waking world, in the penthouse Dirk and Jake shared.

The facsimile was perfect. The collar’s soft inside clung to Dirk’s adam’s apple in the same way as he swallowed.

For a moment, they stayed like that. Jake’s body was warm against the misty air, and his lips were hot as they followed a bead of moisture that ran down Dirk’s cheek.

He’d not expected the way that rolled down his spine, making him lean back against Jake behind him. A great breath whooshed from his lungs, bringing out a chuckle from Jake.

“Now you’re getting with the program.” He lifted one of Dirk’s hands, pressing a kiss to the blue cuff.

“Okay,” Dirk said slowly. “I can’t go… walking around this world with bondage gear on.”

His laugh fanned out over Dirk’s neck. “Uh, you could. I assume you haven’t seen the getups that come with some of the classes you can pick from.” A hand slipped up Dirk’s shirt to rest on his belly. “You’d know if you played the game properly at all.”

Dirk had steered clear of high population locations when he was dreaming, but he’d seen enough to know this was accurate. For all that the game ran on the cutting edge of technology, some things about MMOs were universal and timeless. “I, okay, whatever, fine. I’ll figure something out.”

He could feel Jake’s smile. “That’s my good boy. I knew you’d never disappoint me.” A kiss pressed to Dirk’s ear, then teeth ran over the curve, a mean fucking bite to his lobe as Jake wrestled himself even closer. He pushed in around Dirk so much, it was crushing. “Think it’s high time to smash some champagne, don’t you?”

Dirk didn’t immediately follow. Then, it didn’t matter. Jake undid Dirk’s pants brusquely and shoved his hand down inside, under his boxers, and ran a rough palm over his dick.

“Shh, shh shh,” Jake said into his ear, following Dirk as he jolted in surprise. “Time for you to let loose, chickadee, you’re not going anywhere.”

The inclination to argue went out of him as Jake took his time feeling around in Dirk’s pants, as if ascertaining for himself that every inch of him was whole and intact. No one would know better than Jake. 

With his spare hand, Jake hooked a finger into one of the cuffs and drew it down and back. Nodding silently, Dirk put both hands behind his back, pressing the leather bands together. They didn’t have the metal link they’d normally use for this, but Dirk figured he could fake it fine.

Another pleased noise rent out of Jake as he stroked Dirk’s shaft with one hand and cradled his balls in the other. Getting double fisted was not the sort of dream Dirk expected to have with the Dreamweaver strapped on, but Jake was full of surprises.

His tongue was almost pushy as he swept away more wet tracks from Dirk’s skin, fairly drinking from him in a way that wound Dirk the fuck up. It had no business being that hot, but Dirk squeezed his eyes shut and let out a whine at the rough, possessive treatment. Jake just seemed to bury himself further into Dirk, greedy and demanding.

As he filled out, his pulse thrumming against Jake’s hands, Jake worked him further out of his pants. The air was cold everywhere Jake wasn’t touching, and Dirk pushed back, trying to eliminate the space between them, like Jake could shelter him from the cold and the mist.

Admittedly it was good in that way that could only be a dream. Jake’s grip slid nicely, even without lube or some setting-accurate oil substitute. The particular way Jake’s voice got tight and caught when they were doing this was perfect, like they were fooling around in the office again, flesh and blood and endorphin rush.

Later, he’d look at the code. See what had been populated automatically, examine the batched commands that quantified this feeling.

That was later. Now, Jake pressed his open mouth against Dirk’s neck and moved with Dirk as he curled up, into the sensation tensing in his legs and belly. Finally, Dirk moved his hands, to brace both of them and keep them from toppling off their seat as Dirk came. He shot off into the scattered grass and wet soil, holding on to keep from falling to the damn ground.

They didn’t fall over like a pair of drunks, but Dirk overbalanced enough he sunk to his knees on the ground. Jake clung to him, snickering happily and kissing Dirk’s neck avidly.

He was heavy. Dirk put up with it for the moment.

“There you go,” Jake said, bright and breathless. “Cherry popped like a red balloon.”

“Don’t think that’s how it works,” Dirk grunted.

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, if can work however we like.” He laid a wet smacking kiss on Dirk’s cheek. “Glad I got to you first. I’ll cash in your V card for all the EXP.”

“That’s _definitely_ not how that works!” He elbowed Jake until he let go, falling onto his side.

“How would you know? Procedurally generated questing tailored to the player, that’s a tricky wicket.” He rubbed his chin and let out a loud, faux-contemplative hum.

Rolling his eyes, Dirk looked away.

Jake drew him back with a hand on his neck. His thumb rested on the collar, and his gaze laid heavily with them.

Swallowing thickly, Dirk watched Jake watching him, and let the moment stretch between them, between fourteen time zones and 6700 miles.

* * *

Roxy spent her day fuckdeep in Python, building the Oneironaut App. She’d been put on the task early on, as soon as one of the major issues of the game had come to light. Internal betas were fine, as everyone in the company had some basic access to the game files.

With consumer release though, something became clear; when a person woke up and left the game, their recollection of their time in Atlantis was disjointed and confusing at best, and a complete mystery at worst.

It was, after all, a dream.

Humming to herself, she worked on the app, building a cute interface for people to track their character and see their sweet loot and check where they were when they last logged off. Over time, she could add more features based on what people wanted, but Jane wanted this launched ASAP, so a version 1.0 was fine.

Something was not chatting up the API properly, spitting back nothing but sassy connection errors. Pain in the ass.

Before she could troublesharpshoot it, her phone rang. She tapped the call with a finger and touched the earpiece she wore. “Lalonde.”

“Rox, you still awake?”

“Nah, Dirk, I’m sawin’ logs, natch.”

“Natch.” He sighed. “Okay, I need to admit something because I need your professional input on a very unprofessional action on my part.”

“Natch three times combo,” she said, scrolling through the API documentation.

Over the line, Dirk took a deep breath. “We had sex while using the Dreamweaver and I am unsure of the effects this will have on the game as it develops.”

Roxy took her hand off the mouse and leaned back against her sofa. “Wait. So did you bang while someone was logged in? Did you feel it from inside the game?”

“Did-- no, Rox, Jake’s in fucking Japan. We met up in game and had sex in game.”

“Oh! Well, you didn’t say that.” She drummed her fingers on her knees. “Wow. How’d that work? Was it good?”

There was a tense sigh. “I would rate the authenticity of the experience very high.”

“We should add that to the box quotes on the website.”

“Fuck off. Anyway, I don’t know what that’s going to do. The AR clearly put the mechanics in place already for some reason, and I don’t know why since we black boxed it.”

The lacquer on one of her nails was chipping. Roxy wedged herself into the corner of the sofa and started picking at it, peeling the rest away. “Well, if the authenticity is that good, then its doin’ its job, isn’t it?”

“Yeah? I just... didn’t expect this to be part of the parameters of the project. Creating new mechanics and systems and loops, yes, that’s all part of the procgen. But...”

She grinned, letting it flow into her tone. “I think someone has never eRPed in whisper chat before.”

“What the fuck is-- oh, no, I don’t... No.”

“Yeah, no shit! Someone never installed a naughty Gamebyro mod.”

“Rox.”

“Or uncensored their Sims woo-wooing.”

“Never played the Sims.”

“You’re a broken, sad man.” Her nail was clear. She unscrewed the bottle of polish sitting on her side table. “Missing some core life experiences. It’s a travesty that you’re a game dev now.”

“I’m gonna hang up and call Jane.”

“No, she’ll freak out and demand we roll back the AR or something!” Roxy cat-hissed at Dirk as she dragged some polish on her nail. “Listen to me, DS. Are you listening?”

“I’m listening,” he said dourly.

“This is fine. The AR did not flip alignment and go Chaotic Horny. It’s a game built for dreamers and needs the systems to facilitate those dreams.” She paused for effect. “That includes wet dreams.”

“If I log into Nebeltal next week and it’s nothing but seven brothels and a Jiffy Lube, this entire game is scuttled.”

She snorted. “Aw, shit, gonna make me mess up my nail polish. But, nah, Dirk, Dirk. The restraining bolt that tethers the AR is that it is there to give the dreamers what they want in a safe environment. It’s not going to rejig all the starting gear into fetish clothes, okay? If people wanna... get a little frisky, it’s just there to facilitate.”

That seemed to quell the Striderian temper tantrum. When he responded, he was quieter, voice low and serious. “I just don’t want this to screw up. Maybe black boxing it wasn’t the best idea.”

She screwed her bottle shut and grabbed the topcoat next. “Have you asked the AR about it? It’s a black box, sure, but it’s got a window we can peek through.”

Dirk hummed softly.

“Don’t want it to know you’re worried?” Roxy asked.

“Something like that. Maybe? I’m not sure.”

She painted the glossy clear layer onto her nail idly. “Well, don’t get to twisted up about it. I’m willing to bet a lot of in game currency that you and Jake weren’t the first, and you deffo will not be the last. So maybe let the AR handle it and keep the yellow cards in your pocket until something actually goes wrong.” 

“That sounds annoyingly sensible.”

“Hell, I’m kind of excited to log back in and do some… manual exploration myself.”

“Oh my god,” Dirk groaned. “Okay, thanks for the consult, bill us the applicable time, I’m gone.”

“Sweet dreams, handsome!” She made a smacking kiss noise into the line, and heard Dirk sigh deep and aggrieved before he hung up.

Cackling, she waved her hand through the air as her nail dried. After, maybe she’d put the app work aside. Have dinner. Turn in early for the night and see what was waiting for her on the flipside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. I was involved in an armed robbery in early April, and getting back into writing afterward has been.... very difficult. I'm aware this prose is not up to my usual standards, but this is my attempt to essentially brute force some writing. I hope it's still enjoyable.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check end of chapter for content summary!
> 
> also: Roxy is trans, and refers to her genitals with "dick."

Eadar-Shola was the second city built within Atlantis, and the first entirely assembled by the Augmented Reality procgen.

Roxy was among the first to see it; Dirk handed her access as SkaiaNet beta-tested things internally. There was obviously concern around the hands-off nature of its design. Their own trial by fire. If the AR was able to pull this off, it was a strong signifier of the success of the program.

What the AR created was, Roxy thought, lovely. It was a city of shadows and colored light, hues of purple and pink and orange casting over the walls, masking the real color of the stone walls as they were imbued by the lamps nearby. Overhead, between the peaked roofs, was a dark sky devoid of stars. The air was still, and Roxy wondered briefly if Eadar-Shola was hidden in a cavern or something.

But no, that was just how things worked here. The markets sold shroud candles that swallowed light and the new city-specific class was the Nadir, a shadow mage that thrived away from the sun.

Roxy abused her privileges a bit, unlocking the class for herself early. It came with a cloak and corset look that was incredibly stylish. There were little silver heels on her boots, clicking loudly on the cobbled path. That seemed like a bad trick for a stealth class, but at level five there was a Silent Step passive ability. So, fine, it worked.

Her eyes lingered on the character model in her floating monitor for a moment before she quickly waved it away. For all her bravado to Dirk, she took her time acclimating to the game.

Taking her time involved skipping some boring quests meant to orient new players to the city. What was she, some fresh-faced scrub? Hell no. She had a mortifying amount of time logged for various games and she deserved some respect.

Before long, she walked out of the city and across a grand bridge that seemed to hang in the void itself.

The bridge was deserted. Glancing back over her shoulder, she could see some people loitering by the city gates, unwilling to pass the threshold.

With a chuckle, she tried something, and asked to the open air: “Hey, AR, are you there?”

The answer was instantaneous, like it’d been waiting all along. Really, it was probably just all that processing power ready to multitask at the drop of a hat. ”Kind of an odd question. I’m omnipresent in the most literal sense.”

“Yeah, I know, but I wasn’t sure if you’d talk to me in-game. Hi.”

”Hey, sup.” There was a lull, like a cybernetic god AI holding its breath. ”So, what do you think?”

Roxy trailed her hand over the polished smooth railing, walking further away from Eadar-Shola. “You want to know what I think? That’s a very human sentiment.”

”I have performed a creative feat and like all sentient things I seek validation for my work.”

“D’aw, that’s adorable. Well, I would say I definitely like it a lot. It’s entirely my kind of town. However.” She looked back again, to see if anyone had ventured out. “You might have to dial back the eternal abyss. Kind of gnaws at the hindbrain of humans. Alternians tend to be less gunshy around darkness, but…”

”I can do that. At least someone liked it.”

“Yeah, my Addams Family heart beats for this shit.” The bridge ended on a downy grass, shining with dew reflecting light from… nowhere Roxy could see. Outside the city was sprawling grassland and trees casting shadows so dark they seemed pitch black.

Her fingers itched to do something. She let them move with her intuition; her thumb touched her middle finger, and as she parted them, a blue orb of dark light filled her hand.

Ooohing appreciatively, Roxy waved it around. It illuminated the area around, the shadows receding. Something about the effect as unusual, like her little orb was eating the darkness more than actually casting light.

“Niiiice.” She whistled lowly and continued to tromp through the field, towards the trees.

”Are you enjoying the Nadir?”

“Hells yes I am. Love the look.” She patted her chest. “Could use a little more bust to pull it off, but you know.”

The AR hummed. Amused, Roxy consulted her log and read the red text that said [hums thoughtfully].

“So. Speaking of.” The air picked up with the rich scent of pine sap and green needles.

”Are we discussing that now?”

“You already know Dirk called me to have a panic about the fact he got laid in the game.” It wasn’t a question.

“You’re his friend and contracted to assist in these matters. Jake would not understand his concern and Ms. Crocker would misunderstand in the opposite direction. Dirk trusts your judgement.”

“I’m touched. Better work to earn those best friend points.” She cleared her throat loudly. “So, the game has some sexy stuff in it, huh?”

"I believe you are trying to get one of your human rises out of me by referring to the mechanics that way."

The underbrush in the forest was large, bluey-greeny ferns that reached preternaturally high. Roxy trailed her fingers over the tips of the fronds. “Human rises, huh? Is that part of the sexy stuff too?”

”It’s not. I am a virtual world and the rules governing it’s propagation.”

What a tough customer. Roxy sighed, rolling her eyes skyward, sure the AR could see her. “Oh my god, AR. So people can have sex in the game. What else can happen?”

”What else can happen? Well, within certain parameters, anything. I am here to buttle the hell out of all of your subconscious fantasies." The way its voice manifested, like everything was an acoustic part of the sound, was weird. It felt like the entire world should have been listening in on their conversation somehow. "That includes yours, if you want."

Roxy let out an indelicate snort. "My fantasies? You got a hot bubble bath and a copy of the Prisoner of Azkaban movie waiting for me somewhere?"

"That would get us into trouble legally speaking." It was quiet for a second. Roxy lifted her eyebrows. "We don't have to talk about it. I have an unfair advantage here."

"You do, robobro," she said slowly, feeling the playfulness seep out of her a bit. "But it's also your job to buttle, right? Serve my whim?"

"Something like that. Look." The AR sounded _nervous._ I'm going to make an adjustment, and if you don't like it, we can control-Z the shit out of it."

There was a pause, like a held breath. Then, there was a real held breath as Roxy felt something changing. _She_ was changing, there was a flush of sensation like hot menthol, cool but charged, that flowed like a river from her spine, outward into her flesh. Blue spots blinked in her vision like an impending pastel blackout.

Capillaries and blood sparked blue and vivid, a sensation sharper than anything from the waking world. The awareness of her body was so sharp it made her gasp, and the blue spots cleared from her vision.

It was suddenly hard to breathe, and she fumbled for the clasps of her shirt, yanking them open. Her gloves were tight and had holes for her fingertips, so she felt her skin, the heat of it like an electric fever.

As she sucked in a gasp, her chest moved, and it was heavier than before. Looking down she stared as her breasts pushed her neckline wider, because her fucking breasts were growing in size as she watched them. The smaller swell she usually sported was increasing, and her tits kind of pushed out over the corset to rest on top of it, held up by leather and stern boning.

"Omigod," Roxy yelped. "Whoa, wow, okay!"

The menthol fever broke and the blue feeling faded, and her had some… Wow. Boobs. "Holy shit, is this a statue garden because it's fucking busty up in here," she said in a high pitched voice. "AR, what the fuck?"

"Sorry. Was that too anime? I can undo it, if you want."

Roxy held up a hand, saying nothing and just staring at her new and voluptuous rack. With her other hand, she hesitantly tapped on a boob. It bounced nicely under her touch, heavy and supple.

"Anyone who liked this would be kinda weird, right?"

"Not really. No more than when people chose to play any avatar that isn't a one to one reconstruction of themselves."

"Oh, come on," Roxy muttered. Her shirt was gaping now. Taking a moment, she unequipped the corset, straightened herself, and put it back on. Ba- _boom._

Goddamn, she wanted a mirror. Instinctively she looked around for a reflective surface. Everything was still the eerie twilight of Eadar-Shola.

Oh, goddammit, she was in a _game_. Shaking her head at her damn self, she opened her character screen and, "Yowza." She turned, canting her hips, and looked as her image on the screen followed her.

"I get the feeling you approve."

"Hm." She rose up and down on her toes, and had to suppress a giggle as she bounced. "Ha, uh. Huh. Jiggle physics."

"Correctly modeling the movements of varying substances and textures is a vital part of the realism of the world."

"I've thought about having boobs like these before," she said quietly. "Still do, sometimes, just haven't gotten around to it. It's, like, a ton of effort to get those consults and shit, yanno?"

"Sounds like a hassle."

"You're humorin' me now." _Okay, Roxy. How do you like it._ She rolled her neck back, stretching, feeling the way her shoulders pulled under new heft.

"I exist to humor people, kinda."

"Bullshit." Flicking her hand, she cast the monitor away. "Tell me, AR. What other tricks to you have up your sleeves?"

* * *

A package arrived by signed mail to _Cauldron,_ and a fiddlehead of curiosity unfurled in Rose's chest as she took the box behind the counter. There box wasn't particularly heavy, but it was large enough for both hands. The back table had three different brews in progress and barely enough room for her to place the box down without knocking over a teapot or mug.

Before she could take a closer look, one of her timers went off; the jasmine green was ready, and she set it up alongside some lemon rosemary cookies on a sturdy tray before delivering the tea to the proper table.

WIth that one handled, she had time to slice through the stubborn tape with a pair of scissors and open the package.

Between the packing peanuts was a gleaming shiny case marked with the joint logos of SkaiaNet and CrockerCorp. "Curious," she murmured, lifting the case and sliding the box off the table, to the floor.

From the front bar, one of her regulars watched, lowering her cup back to its saucer. "Curious? A surprise delivery today?"

"Oh, indeed. Though I believe I have a decent wager who might've sent it." Turning, Rose primly set the case down on the counter next to Kanaya, offering her a conspiratorial look. "I've mentioned my sister before, haven't I?"

Her lips drew into a green-tinted moue as she touched one neatly manicured claw to her chin. "I believe you mentioned her. The older one you've referred to as boisterous and dauntingly intelligent, who gives hugs that last too long."

Rose arched an eyebrow. "Too long for normal propriety, not that I have personal disdain for them. But yes, Roxy. She's been on contract for quite some time. It was incredibly clandestine, she wouldn't even tell me until the product was officially announced."

Kanaya looked down at the case and the embossed corporate logos with widening eyes. She had a book open that she'd been reading most of the afternoon, the latest from Fleur Thornbrook; here, she slipped her bookmark inside and closed it, giving Rose her undivided attention. "You mean to say she was a part of that strange crown device?"

"I do," Rose said gravely, digging her nails into the edges of the case. It opened on a green band to hang open like a clamshell. Inside was the SkaiaNet Dreamwear, perfectly set into a felted hollow. Smiling wryly, she plucked it up from the edges, lifting it out, holding it between them.

With a little _hm_ noise, Kanaya picked up her cup again, bringing it to her lips. "She wasn't involved in the physical design, I hope."

After justly showing off her present, Rose brought it upstairs, locking it safely in her loft before returning to her teashop. There were pots to fill and drinks to steep for the rest of the afternoon, until closing time came along, and Rose showed Kanaya to the door.

Like so many times before, they both lingered in the doorway, letting their final conversation meander for a while, until the gaps in their conversation became tinged with awkwardness, and Rose finally bade Kanaya a safe trip home.

She locked up and let out a pained groan. _'Would you like to stay for another cup of tea, perhaps something stronger?'_ That's all it would take! She'd mentally practiced three dozen times, and yet the words stayed locked behind her lips.

"Next time," Rose told herself, also for the three dozenth time.

Closing up, Rose retreated upstairs, heated up an udon bowl she'd been lusting over for the last three hours, and dropped onto her cushy armchair. Remote in hand, she drew up her queue, ready to continue season twelve of _American Seance_.

Tucking her legs up on her chair, she cradled her broth bowl close. "Thrill me with your amateur tripe."

Halfway through her dinner, she remembered the Dreamweaver sitting by her bed. She'd left it to charge, because what else did you do with a new piece of technology? As night fell and the piercing glare of the sunset was traded for streetlights, she noticed the low steady pulse of the crown, it's light casting around the room. The red glow was more spooky than anything on her TV.

When Rose finished eating, she dumped her bowl in the sink, and checked her mail. As she expected, Roxy had sent her a message. Inside were some extremely enthusiastic instructions.

If they were going to meet up, she'd have to stay up rather late. But what else was new?

* * *

Getting in took longer than expected; she hadn't anticipated having to install patches, and there was a new update to be downloaded. So tentacleTherapist joined in fashionably late. Roxy had instructed her to join the Eadar-Shola starting region, and it was clear why from the moment she stepped out into the shadowy neon-streaked city.

Time was passing, she knew, but just how much was difficult to put her finger on. Likely due to the dreaming. She'd completed some of the tutorial quests and was exploring the guilds, contemplating which class sounded interesting, when Roxy arrived.

"Rose!" She spun to face the voice, and saw her sister sprinting across the shrouded avenue, right toward her.

"Good evening, Roxy," Rose said, smiling as she opened her mouth to make a clever observation about how surely it must always be night around this place. Instead of that incisive observational humor, she let out a little stuttered gasp. "Um, wow. Those are cat ears. Roxy, you have cat ears."

Roxy came to a staggering stop, arms held out seemingly for balance. "Yes, ha, whoops!" She hopped almost giddily in place, beaming full cheshire. "That's what you notice first, huh? Cat ears, not the new cushions."

"Oh, I noticed. I was simply triaging." She grinned, looking Roxy over. A pair of silky looking cat ears peaked defiantly over her hair. There seemed to be a corresponding tail twitching behind her, darting erratically through the air. And under her very mystical looking cloak, she had a bosom that was significantly more generous than what the good lord gave her, so to speak, spilling over a corset with ornate silver stitching. It looked incredibly fancy, and Rose could almost detect the aura of _loot_ emanating from it.

Noticing Rose's keen regard, Roxy posed. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Certainly not what I expected. Is this an eroge?"

"Why does my sweet innocent baby sister know that term? Are you still writing those Fleur novels? Nevermind." She blew her hair out of her eyes. "Nah, it's like… any type of game you want! This baby is humming with potential. We have this automated gamemaster who builds quests and rewards and just plain new mechanics based on what you want. It's basically the best, and I helped code it, so."

"They do say that automation will replace humans," Rose said gravely.

"Oh stop. Do you know the manpower and totally unhealthy amounts of crunch needed to run a big game like this?" Roxy cut her hand through the air, then linked her arm through Rose's. "Trust me, it's better this way."

"I was simply needling you. It's terribly impressive so far. And a little scandalous to consider, having my mind in the grip of such a thing."

Blowing out a raspberry, Roxy coaxed Rose along with her. "Not everything is so sinister, Rosey-Posey. And you know, I think there is a _perfect_ new class for you, newly implemented by that evil AI overlord you as so meanly slandering."

Walking along the dark streets, Rose smiled, shaking her head. "Well, do inform them I apologize for my obviously unfounded remarks."

"I literally can, since I'm an admin. We're totally gonna gossip about you later. Anyway!" She pointed up ahead. "Had to start you in Eadar-Shola. When you see the Cloister of the Votarists, you are gonna just die. We're gonna have to pop a phoenix down on your ass."

And ahead, parting the streets like great seas and across a great courtyard of eerie emptiness, was a basilica. Like everything in this city, it felt carved from the lack of light, perilously built of directionless shade and light bouncing off surfaces that wanted to swallow the sun. It great dome was black as void, standing out against the starless night against all odds.

Rose kept her expression carefully schooled into a bemused aloofness, but down deep in her sleeping avatar's heart, she felt a thrill run through her. "The Votarists."

"Votary," Roxy whispered. "You're gonna love it, I'd bet the house on it."

"We'll see," Rose said, even as she thought _oh, yes._

* * *

The bridge out of the city was finally dotted with people. The level of darkness had been lightened up a bit, as Roxy had suggested, and now people sat against the better lit areas. A few people had set up little trade spots, sitting on woven carpets with crafting materials on sale. She spotted some reward materials from some of the dungeons as well as common mats but from the Nebeltal area. Good for people who didn't want to trek back to the misty city to the south.

The signs of life were exciting. Atlantis was turning into a nice little place, about the best place you could be in the middle of the night without waking up with a hangover.

Roxy spun out a ball of anti-not-light, reverse illuminating her path. By now, she could let it orbit slowly around her without focus. As she walked, she grabbed a few blades of long grass and began to braid them together.

The world hummed first, like a stereo coming on, but without input. Roxy grinned, and waited for the AR to speak: "Do you think she'll enjoy it?"

"What, you have doubts?" Roxy laughed.

"Yes. Usually I have the reference points of an active dreamer to build from. Having to craft something for someone I've never met based only off your description was a new challenge. And not one I am particularly geared for."

"Aw, AR. It's really not that complicated. I know my sister, and she fucking loves magic shit, and warlock-y stuff especially. If it's got that aura of danger, she's super down." She wished she could reach out and pat the AR's shoulder. "And you got look at her now. You'll be great."

"Your blind encouragement is appreciated."

The feeling of a mic left on remained as Roxy examined her map. The fog had cleared from a pretty impressive portion of the map, but there was still an unexplored area out east from Eadar-Shola, before land turned to ocean.

It was going to be a longass walk. "Man, we need to get some mounts in this game."

"Roxy," the AR said. "I would like to make a request."

Her steps nearly faltered, and her blood raced. "Uh huh?" Totally smooth, totally calm.

"I enjoy the appellation I've been given. AR sounds more familiar than the alternative of ARPG or some horrible Frankenstein portmanteau like AugReal. But I would like to be referred to not as _'it'_ but… _'he.'_ If you don't mind."

Oh. Roxy found herself grinning, wide and goofy. "That's super fine by me, buddy."

"And I will see how quickly I can bump mounts up the pipeline for you."

"It's a shame I can't give you a high five, robobro."

"The sentiment has been recorded in my databanks." He paused, like taking a deep breath. "So. Where are you going today?"

"There's unmarked parts of my map to finish filling in. Wanna get it done before next regions are added. You feelin' up for a quest, Navi?"

"My research has shown fairly definitively that you just insulted me."

Roxy winked to the sky. "Do something about it."

The on-mic hum remained for a long, significant moment, before he just hummed and the world settled back into its usual silence.

The stroll around Eadar-Shola was leisurely, brisk and easy on the feet as Roxy followed the outline of a path. There were trees around, and a clear area where they were parted enough for easy traversal. No real roads existed yet, only some half-sunken cobbles that prescribed the way to Nebeltal and outward to the north shore, where a new region was due to pop up as soon as AR was ready.

There were few encounters out this way. Or, Roxy was not in the mood to break the contemplative quiet of her stroll, and the game was abiding. She'd begun to notices little minute shifts in how the game operated. The systems she and Dirk had put into place were changed or refined or silently removed, presumably as AR rewrote himself and the world.

One of the perks, Roxy suspected, was around the main hub cities, if someone wanted to just enjoy the beautiful eerie scenery, the mobs just didn't spawn as often or their aggro radius was reduced. A great trick, without a doubt.

In time, the dark grasses around the city gave too looser soil. The trees sank into the earth, their roots expanding out like flying buttresses.

A boot slipped partially into silty dampness, and Roxy stopped, reopening her map.

 _Zaffre Saltfens_ was filling in, its name in ornate swooped lettering. The cartographic land turned into dispersed islands drawn with light ink, fanning out then into the sea.

"You know," AR said quietly. "This is a higher level area than your usual stomping grounds."

"Am I _underleveled?"_ she asked.

"Hm. No. I only mean to advise that you would find a challenge here."

She flicked the map off and checked her status screen. She was only in her second REM cycle for the session. "I got plenty of time. Maybe I want a challenge, pal. Maybe I wanna see you hit me with your best shot, whaddya think of that?"

Out of nowhere, a waypoint marker appeared. Faint by distance, Roxy could see it was deep in the Saltfens.

"Danger and treasure aplenty reside in Zaffre."

"Oh, shove it in a lore book, AR." Squaring her shoulders, she began walking again, further from solid ground, and deeper.

Zaffre Saltfens was wet as a rude euphemism for wetness. In moments, Roxy was ankle-deep in a puddle of water as the tang of ocean salt began to fill her lungs. The darkness of the region subsided by degrees as the water itself seemed to glow faintly, casting off the spooky shadows. Everything looked like a fairy fountain from the old games Roxy remembered so fondly.

But the water deepened, and soon she was wading slowly through mana-blue liquid. The trees and their enormous roots made it easier to move: she could reach out, grab one, and use it to propel herself along.

Actual surfaces to rest on were few and far between. A few trees offered enough space to haul herself out, and there were these ginormous lilypads with red-violet stalks.

But once she was out… she couldn't do anything but drop back in, getting soaked again.

The waypoint was becoming less transparent, following the universal UI convention for getting closer to the goal. But the straight-line not-path had Roxy trudging along only to drop down abruptly into the water to her fucking neck, doggy paddling as the ground went out from under her.

Spitting out water-- which just tasted like salt, thankfully, not some magic poison stuff-- she grabbed onto the thick platform of a pad and hauled herself up.

"Danger of what, danger of waterlogging!" she complained loudly and started to unequip some shit. Okay, the cloak she'd gotten from her last class milestone was really nice with the history of the Nadir Guild stitched in all fancy, but it felt like carrying a wet bearskin around now.

She put it away, as well as her belt of pouches and her corset. Immediately, it was easier to breathe.

Over her panting, there was a sound of water moving, and she sucked in a little gasp.

Carefully, she pulled her legs up on the lilypad, planting her hands for balance. Ripples bumped into her platform, then rebounded back out. Was that from her or something else?

Behind her was a vivid, obvious laugh. Fingers pressing together, she reached for the shadows, and shit. Hm. With the merrily glowing water in the Saltfens, there was not an overabundance of darkness for her to utilize. Pale shadows could be formed into weapons and spells, but where the nadir thrived was harnessing pitch black into solidity.

Here, it was like trying to pluck as fraying fabric.

Water moved again, and the laughter was to her left.

Knee down, she turned, hand outstretched and ready to launch a magic missile off.

There was only a disturbance in water tension there.

"Shit," she muttered, knee-walking to the middle of the lilypad and stopping to listen. There was something lurking. She'd caught the attention of something.

Peripheral. Something with green skin and black wet eyes. She fisted her hand, started to look--

It vanished under the water again. But now Roxy was prepared. All she needed was another shot. Some aquatic mob was about to cough up some EXP for her.

Left and behind, a giggle. Roxy tossed her accumulated shadow to her other hand and flung her arm out in a viper's strike.

This time, she saw the mob. A humanoid face with skin the color of new leaves. A texture like knotted kelp made up their hair, locked back into a thick braid. A wicked smile.

Roxy aimed, only to miss as something grabbed her arm from the _right_ and yanked her aside. She tipped, landing with a wet splat on the lilypad as a _second_ mob held her wrist in a clawed grip.

"Oh, sh--" The entire lilypad shuddered and jerked backward, like a carpet being pulled out, and Roxy fell headfirst into the water, free arm swinging wildly.

Something thick and strong that cut through the water like a knife through butter smacked Roxy in the side, sending her spinning like a top. When the grip on her wrist yanked, she was dragged along, arm stretched over her head. All the glowing blue and faint movements disoriented and dazzled her.

Something else grabbed her legs before she could orient herself, and then thankfully, she was lifted upward, out of the water, sucking in a needed gulp of air. She felt something press against her back, and arms hooked under hers. Sharp nails ran lightly over her neck and shoulder.

Tittering laughter surrounded her. Jerking her head back, she let her wet hair slap back, out of her eyes. Behind her, one of the mobs holding her let out a shocked sputtered as the other cackled in delight.

Her body was stretched like a hammock between two points. The one behind her that ate a high powered hair flip was a mystery, but her other captor floated clearly in her vision. The green, sleek creature was a mermaid of some kind, or maybe a dryad? There was a very distinct leafy quality to them

With a little focus, she could bring up a brief information tooltip. _Zaffren Guardian._

"Hey there," Roxy ventured. There were those claws around her legs, but the guardian didn't seem to be ready to sink them into vulnerable flesh just yet.

Roxy wiggled, experimentally.

The hand on her neck slid up, forcing her head back, pinpricks against her skin. "Okay, okay, okay, easy tiger. Tigers. Tigerfish. Are those anything? No, it's lionfish, innit?"

More laughter surrounded her. There were three voices, she thought, but didn't dare try to turn her head and look to confirm.

Stuck looking up at the canopies overhead, there was a plucking against her boots. "Uh, hey!" she squawked as one was yanked off. Fuck, that better have returned to her inventory and not been dropped.

One dagger nail dragged along her arch, and Roxy couldn't avoid yelping and twisting at the ticklishness.

"Oooooooh," crooned one guardian, and another joined them with another identical noise. Then, the third, and their voices flowed into a weird harmony as they continued to toy with her. Next, her glove was removed, and another claw teased her palm.

Not as ticklish, but Roxy gasped at the continued exposure. She was dragged around through the water, unsure where she was, hanging there as the guardians played with her.

After moving her where they wanted, the guardians closed in like a vice; her now-bare feet were released and two of the mer-dryads backed her up flat against the third behind her. Swinging her arms as much as she could given the hold, she tried to grab hold of something to brace herself. No luck.

One guardian reached up and stroked her hair, catching on her soft cat ear. They burbled with interest to their companion, and soon Thing One and Thing Two were both petting Roxy avidly. Which was creepy but also, uh, fine. Having her superfluous ears played with felt nice; if she had enough points in feline morph, she'd be able to purr at the attention.

Thing Two's hands grew bored with her hair eventually and dragged down to trace her jaw, then along the delicate skin of her neck. She gasped and tipped her head back instinctively, grasping for distance. But there was nowhere to go, and she felt the guardian's thumbs dragging down, past her clavicle, pressing into the softness of her chest. Their thumbs tugged her shirt open wider, and the creature let out a low clicking noise.

"Hey, wanna buy a girl a drink fiiiiiiiirstoh shit." Roxy jerked back against the body behind her (Thing Three, ha) as her shirt was sliced open with sharp nails. "Hey, that's level gear! Plus... plus somethin' t' somethin'. I don't fucking remember."

Thing From The Blue Lagoon One grew tired of her babbling, apparently, and rudely yanked Roxy into a liplock. Emphasis on the lock. Their thumbs continued to work her bonus ears like dancing right on an erogenous button as cool slick lips pressed quelling to hers. Her reaction was muffled, and an even cooler tongue slid into her mouth, wrapping around her tongue and squeezing in a way that felt new and fucking _weird._

Her fingers grasped helplessly at the air as her mouth was taken-- _stolen_ , even-- and two broad hands pressed full against her breasts, cupping them in a wide grip. Roxy's legs kicked from the pure shock, and a tail wrapped around one of her thighs.

Of course she'd taken the time to get acquainted with the boobs, some manual cataloging to get to know them. It was entirely different with alien hands on her, taking their own stock and enjoying her shape. The guardian pushed her breasts to her chest, then relaxed them again. Their hands squeezed and released, a little harder each time, and Roxy groaned as she felt the claws tease her flesh.

From behind, another tail wrapped around her other leg. For all the cold hands on her and the tepid temperature of the water, heat ran down her spine and pooled like spilled oil in her gut. Opening her mouth, she tried to say something to her captors, but the tongue in her mouth pressed against her palette, the insides of her cheeks, and everything came out a garbled, stifled cry.

Flailing, she got a hand on the shoulder of-- one of them, one two or three she had no idea.

A trill ran through the trio, bouncing around her head. The kiss ended; Roxy panted with soft winded noises as One and Three conversed in their quick language.

A quick adjustment happened. The guardians pinning her back grabbed her wrists as the third let go. Blinking against the headrush, she looked between then, trying to figure out what was happening.

Overhead, the tree's leaves rustled musically. She glanced up in time to see a long blue-green vine being pulled down from the canopy, some decent slack of cord in Thing Three's hands.

Her wrists were slapped together, wet and loud, and all three guardians worked to tie her hands. Hell, the tree itself seemed to _help_ , making the knot more secure.

And Roxy hung there, suspended and bound as her captors smiled cheerfully at her. Cold hands smoothed up the back of her shirt, pressing into her. It pushed her into the others, who took Roxy _happily._

Submerged from her shoulders down, she was solidly in the domain of the guardians, and they had no compunctions about laying claim. Teeth nibbled at her (human) earlobe. A long-fingered hand gripped the back of her neck and rubbed possessively, claws against her wet scalp. Her belt came off, and her pants loosened so swiftly, she assumed the laces had been sliced clean through. One breast was gripped _tight_ , until her flech dipped under the weight of claws, making Roxy rock and arch her spine. A litany of breathy expletives rained like water drops from her lips. Her thighs were squeezed tight and pulled open.

Then, it all stopped. All three of the watery jerks just stopped still, hands still where they pressed into Roxy's body.

She shook her head, hard. "Th-- the fuck, what? Come on, jesus!"

They all laughed, and one kissed her again, as deep as before, deeper.

The tension in the cord holding her vibrated with tension as they guardians enclosed her. While she valiantly tried to get her tongue into the mouth of the one kissing her, slippery hands dragged the tight weave of her pants down her hips; not an easy task, given she was soaked now. They worked in unison to get them down over her ass and tug them down to her mid-thigh. Then, finally, a hand gripped around her cock, tight and mean from the word go, the contrast between her warm body and the guardian's skin cold enough to make her yell.

The sound was swallowed, and Roxy's feet twitched as she was stroked quick and fast, blood swiftly directing to her dick until she was diamond hard. She needed more or less, either of those, but _now_.

Her ass was groped as well, cheeks squeezed with the same brand of demand. It was hard to focus on that; her kisser twisted to the side, keeping her mouth solidly occupied. One of the others pressed flushed to her chest, squirming to get skin to skin.

And she was directed with a firm hand until Roxy was thrust into the guardian, fuckdeep into cool skin that clung wetly to her.

She tried to throw her head back to scream at the exquisite hot tight weirdness that was wrapped around her; not joy, as the other guardian grasped her head more tightly and used the distraction to drive their tongue into Roxy's mouth. It was a sharp rhythm that was _perfectly_ matched by the beat of hips against hers.

Behind her, the wily third guardian worked her into some position they wanted her in, and then her cheeks parted around a long, reedy dick that frot against her.

And her brain pretty much went offline, good sense scattered like marbles by the tangle of limbs. Her fingers impotently clenched and clawed at the cord holding her as the guardians worked her in tandem, rocking her forward into one of them, back into the other, and all the while another swallowed every pathetic cry and request and wordless sound she made. She came at some point, accidentally clenching back on the dick sliding rapidly against her ass. All three of them cooed and sang in her ears.

At some point, she hung limp from her arms, and felt all three of them shift. New positions. Her legs coaxed up around one of their hips.

And it all started up again.

* * *

Roxy felt her open mouth kissed thrice in quick succession, each time by a different mouth.

Her wrists were freed, and she shrieked as she sank all the way into the water, her body thrumming with exhaustion. At some point, her legs had functioned. She had to recall how to move them, to push herself upward until she could resurface with a gasp.

Keeping afloat was like carrying a load of cinderblocks. She kicked off, blurrily reaching out for the first thing she could find, _anything_ solid to brace on.

She found a giant lilypad. Hauling herself up and onto it was a fucking ordeal worthy of getting her ass into Mount Olympus. At first, she just managed to get her upper body out of the water, and then just hung like that, her legs dangling off in the water.

Just to catch her breath. Then, she yanked herself up, and rolled wetly across, flopping onto her back on the lilypad.

She was dead. There was no way she was alive. She definitely got triple-fucked to death. Her first in-game death. What a way to go. Fuck. "Fuck," she said hoarsely.

Roxy lay there on the lilypad for a while. Long enough for a soft chime in her skull to ring, alerting her of her impending wake up sequence. She must've finished all five of ther REM cycles. Reaching down carefully to adjust herself and haul her pants back up, she figured yeah that sounded about right.

When she finally opened her eyes, she squinted at the bright light over her head.

It was the waypoint marker. It was right over her.

Sitting up was too much work. Instead, Roxy lolled her head one way.

Nothing over there but the water, where the frisky evil Zaffre Guardians lurked.

She rolled her head the other way.

There was, sitting in the middle of the lilypad, a loot chest. Just chilling there. Waiting.

Unbidden, Roxy started laughing. First a low giggle, then great guffaws that shook her entire body.

 _Fuck it,_ she thought tiredly. The chest would be there when she logged back in tomorrow night.

Shutting her eyes again, Roxy waited for her carriage to turn back into a pumpkin.

* * *

At level five, the votary unlocked her first ability, the first step on her path under the tutelage of an unknowable patron: Night Vision.

Rose liked to think she had honed her own aloofness into a stiletto point, ready at any time for pinpoint accuracy. But Eader-Shola had unveiled itself like a gorgeous woman disrobing, and Rose held her fingers against her lips to remind himself not to gape like a fish at the sights around her.

Her home city was beautiful. She sat on the patio outside a coffee house, the sort of place that left her with a metal pot and a little glass cup that showed off the dark liqueur of her drink handsomely. Casting her eyes around, her attention ricochet from the statues that posed around the courtyard to the sigils half-worn out of the paving stones to the complex scaled surface of the basilica dome. Everything wanted her attention.

Like a good votary, she would make herself of use to the stories reaching out for her. One at a time. She had to be methodical.

She was just deciding where she wanted to start when Roxy walked across the courtyard, over towards her.

"Hello, Roxy," Rose greeted when her sister was within polite distance. "How have you been?" Her eyes lowered, taking her in. "That is... some remarkable armor."

Only a day had gone by since last they parted ways, but Roxy had an entire new gearset. High boots of some hunter green leather, matching gloves with gold stitching up the sides, and a breastplate that seemed made of interlinked scales that shone like chipped sapphires. She gleamed and sparkled with every step, and a gentle music accompanied her movement.

Roxy's face split into a truly madcap grin. "Yeah? Like it?"

"It's gorgeous," Rose told her honestly. "Where did you happen to find it?"

Her sister cackled, head thrown back, real mirth in every line of her body. "Oh, Rosey. I'll tell you when you're older."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> roxy-centric chapter. early on the AR adjusts Roxy's avatar for her so she has bigger breasts, which throws her off a bit but she ultimately enjoys. she also gets cat ears and a tail basically for funsies. later she happens to adventure into a new area with mer-dryad creatures that are protecting a loot chest she wants. they are amorous guardians and capture roxy, and proceed to have a foursome with her. she spends much of the encounter held in place by the creatures, and later tied. much groping and exploration is had, and then one frots against her ass while another rides roxy's dick. overstimulation and multiple rounds occur. then they let her go and she's totally fine.
> 
> /DUSTS HANDS. they don't got this shit in FF14 I can tell you that!
> 
> btw thank you mims for the confident boost and answering my basic-ass questions.


End file.
